


Bet Your Money On Me (I'm Gold)

by myownknight



Series: Secondhand Agents. [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Awesome SHIELD shenanigans, Badass Ladies Kicking Ass and taking names, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 10:03:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1300915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myownknight/pseuds/myownknight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura's first solo babysitting mission yields some new.... interesting, Interns.   Part of the Secondhand Agents Universe, can be read as a standalone or intro to the Universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Take A Chance On Me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura strategically acquires some new interns during an Interagency summit about some Events.

WASHINGTON D.C., USA. 2009.

Laura Maro titled her head back, enjoying the first few drops of rain. Already the courtyard was nearly empty, the Capital's inhabitants eager to hit the road, hit the hay, or hit the bottle on this dreary Friday evening. Even the air was abnormally silent, only the occasional siren in the distance, and soft shush of tires on the road outside the tightly formed buildings. With one last deep breath, Laura stubbed out the cigarette that had been her excuse for escaping outside for a few minutes. Pocketing the filter for the time being, she headed back inside.

 

Unlocking the second set of doors to the inside, she was greeted by a wave of stuffy heat, and noise. Inside the large open room that was typically a reception and lounge area, analysts, employers, and agents from half a dozen government agencies and three countries packed the place, waving coffee cups towards precariously tilted white boards covered in sharpied annotations, prints outs, and multicolored strings connecting info in a carefully noted way, some from one board to the next. At the small cafe style tables scattered around the room and the one more sensibly sized one that had been co-opted from the conference room down the hall, analysts and translators battled for elbow space, fingers flying as they did what ever it was that they did, and viciously arguing about who was where in the waiting line for one of the five portable printers that were spewing forth content almost nonstop. Two entirely overworked CIA interns that someone had called in a favor for where standing by armed with duct tape, paper, and ink cartridges to fix one when it went down again. Some had given up on the fight for table space and were now bickering over precious wall space to lean against, nearly hidden by some of the numerous white boards.

 

For the most part the agents took turns arguing at the top of their lungs at each other, and protectively glaring at people from behind their Agencies analysts, lest a different organization try to boggart them. The analysts ignored them. In one doorway that lead to a series of smaller offices, Laura was pretty sure the quiet tussle going on was either someone having sex, or attempting to wrestle a decrepit blackboard through the doorway. At this point it could go either way.

 

The Event has been unprecedented in scale, larger than the one that initially sparked this particular issue the year before, nearly destroying a college campus and downtown as well as being the final straw in the ground up renovation of the entire organization that had oversight of it at the time. Rumor was, it had been hellish. Rumor was right.

 

This Event however, was... Different. Methodical. Same flashes of radiation signatures that indicated an Event occurring, however every single one was at least one hundred miles if not two from any semblance of civilization, and the destruction was almost... artistic. The satellite photos showed new clearings that were almost perfectly circular, in one a nearly neat pile of uprooted trees pushed to one side. Each event lasting between thirty minutes and four hours, and the next following always at least forty eight hours to seven days later, in a different location far enough away the the cumulative destruction did not have a significant negative impact on the local environment.

 

It was like they were deliberately triggered Events, rather then the, well, more 'organic' development of them that had previously been observed. Maro was of the opinion that the most likely explanation was the most obvious, that they were being deliberately triggered, but most of the analysts and other agencies were in denial about the potential that an Event could be controlled, much less a non-threat when occurring. Hence the pointless pissing contest currently erupting all over the room.

 

As one of the youngest Agents, and pretty much the only one that thought that the Events weren't actually a problem, Maro's role had been pretty much reduced to the unheard voice of reason, and ensuring SHIELD's analysts didn't get snatched and or broken by anyone else. Particularly since before the overhaul this had been SHIELDs whole mess in the first place, and some if not most of the other agents present where nursing a pretty big grudge about having to clean up SHIELDs mess. 

 

Laura’s phone phone buzzed with a text update regarding the arrival of desperately needed tactical re-supplies. Collaring two unfortunately passing interns that looked like they wouldn’t be missed any time soon, Laura head outside to collect and sign for the deliveries. Once outside in the empty parking lot, the deliverers looked vaguely confused about the large orders they where dropping off at an evidently empty office building on a Friday evening, and that for most of them at least one of their local competitors where also present making a drop off, but they lightened up once it was obvious someone was present to pay and take delivery, and that it wasn’t a prank. Ample tips in hand, they scattered once their cargo’s were safely in the possession of a determined Junior Agent, two mildly intimidated and overwhelmed interns who were definitely in over their security levels, and one loudly creaking hand cart.

 

The Agents present decided in the spirit of cooperation to set aside their differences for the duration of supply distribution. Laura would have appreciated it more if any of them had bothered to pool in for the pizza, but deigned to ignore it in favor to insuring at least three of the pizza’s reached her three charges, a quiet sciency type named Hank who was some kind of expert on subatomic particle vibrations, probationary Agent Carter who was rather promising, if a bit too focused on inter-agency drama, and Carl, some kind of data analyst she’d seen around SHIELD now and then, usually in a field uniform instead of the kakis and button up he currently sported, along with a nearly monosyllabic personality in the face of the current insanity ensuing in front of them. Laura tried not to judge. Every one had their own ways of fortifying themselves for ‘the field’, and Carl had be reassigned to assist at the last minute. Besides, with the way the FBI’s top analyst was currently flourishing a plastic spark in front of not one, but three of the computers he had pretentiously claimed as absolutely vital to what ever the fuck he was doing, Carl wasn’t likely to have anything to work with any time soon.

 

Maro’s new ducklings that she’d appropriated to help carry in the takeout were evidently still not missed by their original owners, and seemed perfectly happy to follow her into the relative safety of the in-walled space she’d created by surrounding it with three whiteboards. The space behind them was just large enough to fit all of them, and kept Hank and Carl from being stepped on, poached, or yelled at. Carter was busy looking very important scanning for nonexistent threats in the chaotic room, thrilled to be let out of training for the week on her first babysitting detail. To her credit, she only twitched a little when Laura returned, trailed by Marisa, an International Relations undergrad from the NSA, and Peter, a twitchy little Freshman Journalism major who has been interning at Oscorp, and was working with the USDA on some exchange thing. Laura wasn’t really seemed sure why the USDA was present, but they were, and they were relatively non annoying at the moment so she let it slid. 

 

Hank didn’t even look up, absorbed with some elaborate process of squinting between the white boards to look at the other analysts work and findings, before scribbling corrections and mathy things on interior side of the double sided white boards. Given three whole white boards all of his own, and no one currently yelling specifically at him, Hank seemed currently perfectly content to keep doing what ever he was doing. Laura was about thirty percent sure what ever it was wasn’t actually related to tracking and or understanding the Events, but since he wasn’t causing a fuss, she let him be.

 

Carl on the other hand, without a driving desire to go wade in the the mosh pit of analysts and agents in the center of the room to try to get any first hand data, and since SHIELD was more or less here to keep the other agencies from killing themselves and or starting World War three, was at the moment staring vary intently at his computer screen while he sat on the deep window ledge. He was playing solitaire. 

 

Marisa and Peter seemed a bit shell shocked now that they were in the eye of the hurricane, so Laura shoved a slice of pizza and a bottle in both of their hands, propped them against the wall on either side of Carl’s dangling legs, and let them keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was initially supposed to be just a drabble of what Laura is up to during Don't Let Me Go, but it's turned into it's own little fic that I'm really enjoying working on. This is my first time posting a WIP that isn't self contained in each chapter, so please bear with me as I work on it. Updates will be intermitent as real life interfers.
> 
> The Events referred to are instances of Bruce Banner selectively transforming, as seen at the end of The Incredible Hulk. I'm attempting to rectify Marvel's Movie time line just a touch, since the after credits scene in The Incredible Hulk messes with the unified timeline tied to movie releases.
> 
> Follow me on my writery things and poetry tumblr, www.myownknight.tumblr.com
> 
> Titles from Victoria Justice's Gold.


	2. Get Close To Me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura calls in a favor for her new ducklings.

The summit of ‘Oh My God The Events What The Actual Fuck Arrgh’ as Carl had surprisingly enough begun to refer to it as, was ultimately, a huge waste of time. It had devolved into the National Security Team from Paraguay (were two of the six most recent Events had been), trying to insist that the US should pay for unspecified damage to the local ecosystem, despite absolutely no lose of life or private property beyond one possible cow that may have had a heart attack as a result but was pretty old to begin with. The FBI, CIA, and NSA only stopped fighting about jurisdiction long enough to tell Paraguay to shove it, and reiterate this was all SHIELDs fault to begin with. Laura had declined to speculate on behalf of SHIELD, but had also pointed out it wasn’t like any of the rest of them were getting anything done either, beyond the totally subtle negotiations that the CIA was trying to finagle with Mexico while they had a representative captive audience. 

 

In the end, they actually drew straws at one point. Everyone cheated. Eventually the long awaited directions from higher came, and Laura was officially authorized to take over the case file on behalf of SHIELD, under the rational that they could clean up their own mess. Everyone generally concurred.

 

The best part of it all however, was when Laura got to try to explain to Tom in HR why she needed two retroactively dated employment contracts ASAP. Tom was unsurprisingly less then enthused.

 

“Oh, come on, Tom! Look, they’re good kids, they can follow orders, AND it means we can walk out of this with at least something to show for it, even if it’s just two interns. Plus, didn’t the NSA try to steal Yoshi again last month? It is entirely our turn.” Laura argued as she tried to keep from elbowing a case of cleaning fluid off the shelf for the third time. 

 

In an attempt to maintain some of her facade of professionalism and dignity in front of the other agencies and her new ducklings, she was currently hiding in a supply closet arguing with Tom as quietly as possible. She’d actually had to wait her turn to use the relative privacy of the space, and there was a improvised ten minute limit on usage. Not to mention it was vaguely claustrophobic inducing. 

 

Tom sighed a deep, aggravated, put upon sigh. He had obviously plenty of practice making it recently. “Okay, look. You keep my name out of it, and you owe me one, got it? Now the most I can possibly mock up are part time unpaid internships with the option of advancing to a full time paid position, which is due to start in three days. That is the absolute most I am willing to piss off Brenda over at NSA’s HR, and as far as I’m concerned the USDA can suck it, okay? And for god’s sake, Maro, find someone else in HR to bully around. I know I’m not your only contact.” 

 

Laura beamed. “No, you’re just my favorite contact, Tom. I really appreciate this, alright? I’ll make sure Katy knows next time she comes round with muffins to apologize for whatever she broke.”

 

Tom barked a short quiet laugh. “Don’t you dare bring your crazy ass partner into this Laura, I want nothing to do with Morris.”

 

Laura’s partner, junior agent Kathryn Morris, was far from the scariest agent at SHIELD. She was generally agree to be a combination of the most approachable, and least likely to be fucked with during interoffice squabbles. Having a reputation for not only getting the job done with the utmost professionalism, but also then being up for doing shots directly after debriefing tended to make you a lot of friends. Katy was a natural at making and maintaining connections, with her easy going smile and heavy hand with helping others out. At any one time it seemed like a third of the agents thought they owed her for some favor or another.

 

Laura, on the other hand, had a bit of a reputation for being somewhat more reserved. The role of the quiet mysterious british Agent had sadly been filled thrice over by the time Maro signed on, so she contented herself with just playing a bit of an introvert. She played cards now and then with some of the other pilots she’d met during training, and showed up to enough open after mission celebrations to not be commented on, but people had never been her thing in her personal life. Too many variables.

 

Professionally, of course, was a different story. It always was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually the fastest I've ever updated a WIP, so I'm kinda ridiculously pleased with myself right now. This chapter is a bit of a background update for those jumping into the Secondhand Agents Verse here, and a ease in from descriptive to dialogue.
> 
> Follow me on my writery things and poetry tumblr, www.myownknight.tumblr.com
> 
> Titles from Victoria Justice's Gold.


	3. Want To Be More Then Your Company.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura quells a car ride rebellion.

To say the ride back was awkward was to put it lightly. Laura wasn’t even sure Marisa and Peter had understood her fast paced undertone explanation and job offer as she’d hustled them to to waiting car before their respective former employers pulled their heads out of their asses and did a headcount, though they had come willingly enough. Peter seemed to be under the impression that he was in some kind of trouble, from the grey skinned undertone he was currently sporting and his weak quiet murmurs swearing he hadn’t and wouldn’t do anything ever again. 

 

Marisa seemed to think they were all in some kind of trouble from the way she was obsessively scanning the car windows and caressing her cell phone. She fit right in with Carl, crammed in with all the computer equipment, who was a nervous back seat driver from the way he kept twitching slightly every time Carter changed lanes a little too roughly and looking out the windows like he was expecting a Semi to slam right into them. Hank was snoring softly and drooling lightly on Peter’s shoulder, which seemed if anything to be freaking Peter out just as much as his confusion.

 

Laura claimed shotgun, ousting Carl on the strength of her seniority and the threat of getting carsick. In actuality she had no desire to try to type up her After Action Reports and SitReps while crammed arse to ankle with her fellow companions. Work relations were one thing. Personal space when not actively engaging in a mission was quite another.

 

The last thing she wanted to be doing at the tail end of this pointless babysitting gig was to be moderating of all things, an argument about the radio. But here she was.

 

“No, see, the rule is Driver picks the music, Shotgun shuts their cakehole. Everyone knows that. Besides, who -doesn’t- like Bon Jovi?!” 

 

Carter had come out of her overly hardcore professional shell easily enough when her music was on the line. Laura would be more impressed if it Carter hadn’t chosen to direct her comments at who was technically her senior officer.

 

“Nuh uh, you had music on the way down, and if I have to hear Living On A Prayer one more time, someone is going to end up dead. Besides, everyone knows I fucking get carsick so I vote we changed the goddamn channel.” 

 

Carl most definitely did not get carsick from the way he had ceded the front seat to her easily enough, but he wasn’t backing down either. To be honest Laura was sick of the damn song already too, and she wasn’t tolerating it with half a ton of delicate equipment crammed in next to her and a freaked out intern on the other side. Carl was practically dislocating his shoulders in a valiant but mostly futile effort to avoid being jabbed to death on his left, and try to not feel up Marisa on his right, who was doing her own personal best to become one with the side of the car.

 

Peter was still busy trying to convince the air in general of his continued innocence, and Hank was still miraculously unconscious in the face of Carter’s somewhat aggressive driving style, so it was down to her to man the fuck up and maintain positive control of this car before she ended up screaming at someone and wrecking her ice queen reputation for good.

 

“Carter, no one in the history of the world has ever wanted to listen to Living On A Prayer more then three times in a row when they weren’t stoned. You’ve made your point. Carl, you are not allowed to kill anyone, especially the driver of this car. Carter and I are here to make sure you and Hank get back in one piece, not specifically as some kind of punishment to you, I promise. And can someone stuff a napkin or something under Hank’s head, his drool is starting to pool.”

 

Reluctant peace restored, Laura popped in her own ipod and hit shuffle on playlist Petulant Car Ride 2. There were three, and she’d already used the last one two days ago in the middle of a three hour long traffic jam that SHIELD had refused to air lift them out of. A bland mix of 90’s pop hits and soft rocks with the occasional country ballad, it sounded exactly like every slightly run down bar radio station she had ever heard. Laura was kind of ridiculously pleased with how unobtrusive and forgettable it was.

Her After Action Reports on the other hand, were not so easily tamed. Laura was still tooling with exactly how to paraphrase “mission was a wash, but we boggarted two new interns so its kind of okay” with out sounding like a newbie, when Carter finally pulled off the highway grab lunch and swap drivers with her. With Washington D.C. to New York City being an almost four hour commute, everyone needed some damn coffee after the week they had had.


	4. I Got Everything That You Need.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang arrives at HQ, and Laura delegates possession of one her new minions.

After the shit show that was attempting to host an inter-agency gathering on a shared threat perception in some paper pushers borrowed building, HQ was heavenly. Floor plans big enough to accommodate the staff size and small enough to fit into the neighborhood, security checks at the doors and locks on anything that would be locked down, and the sweet sweet sound or lack thereof of soundproofed external walls. From the outside, just a relatively quite corporate compound. But inside, deliciously competent chaos, even just as far in as the carpool.

 

As soon as Laura had parked and removed the key, Carl made the most discrete and expedient exit she’d ever seen from a tech who wasn’t a field agent, and booked it. Laura let him. If Sitwell wanted track him down and get his report if he didn’t remember to send it in, that wasn’t her problem.

 

Surprisingly enough, Carter didn’t also immediately try to pull a fast one on her and get out of signing back in all their equipment and reporting for the standard post op check up. Instead she just shook Hank awake, finally freeing Peter from being used as an unwilling headrest, and started helping detangle all the equipment that’d been crammed in the boot and back seat. About 78 klicks out from arriving at HQ Peter had finally been convinced that he was not being hauled in for questioning, and instead had just been transferred from one branch to the next, and Marisa had been mostly convinced that they were not in any kind of danger, and that their expedient exit and Carter’s driving had been more out of a desire to get it over with then from any real need for hast.

 

To be fair Laura’s driving on the last leg of the trip probably hadn’t helped either. While Carter was slightly more tactically aggressive then needed, Laura had been taught how to drive by a couple of other incoming agents after she’d been recruited to SHIELD. Learning to drive on the streets of New York City with a badge that legally gave her the right to perform misdemeanors while on the job had given her a certain perspective on the necessity of sharing the road, and proper driving etiquette. 

 

Once the equipment had been divided into things that Hank had agreed to sign back into Tech and Supply for them since he was headed there anyway, and basic weaponry and surveillance that needed to go to the Armory, they parted ways. Hank had apparently at some point during the three hour car ride to dibs Peter, and dragged him along, pushing the over filled and wobbly handcart of equipment while chattering away at his new and still somewhat disoriented intern. At least he was happy. 

Laura took Marisa with her and Carter, planning to get her checked in with Human Resources and make sure she had moving expenses covered, and immediate housing and necessities sorted out before she left for her very overdue mandated 78 hours off duty before receiving her next assignment, or working on the slowly accumulating stack of never ending paperwork waiting in her corner of the fourth floor cubicle farm.

Being back was in some ways almost like coming home, not that Laura would ever admit that on her rare visits back to her Mum’s flat in London. But after over half a decade, the agency was in someways the only job Laura could see herself ever having again. Where else would it be considered perfectly acceptable for her to come blow through a stack of paperwork at two in the morning because she couldn’t sleep, so long as she didn’t do it more then twice a week? Not to mention the company and dedication was nice. With so many Agents being former military, and the organization after all being a technically paramilitary operation, the atmosphere of camaraderie on and off the field was something she’d never experienced in school or her brief stint in the civilian sector as a PR rep of all things.

The Armory was bustling, as always, even at this hour. It’d used to be worse before HR had finally caved and reorganized it so that active Agents checking in and out equipment for assignments used a different counter then the one for checking out items for training or maintenance. The not so discrete and completely unauthorized addition of a rather beat up couch and rickety side table holding a coffee machine to the the already somewhat undersized receiving area didn’t help, but no one had bothered to complain yet. If Agents sometimes felt safer or more comfortable hanging out in front of one of the largest collections of weaponry available in New York City, then so be it as long as they went to their mandatory counseling sessions and didn’t twitch too badly when someone walked in.

Finally it was Laura and Carter’s turn to dump their crap on the counter and begin the lengthy process of signing back in every separate piece and swearing to its state. 

“Hey Maro, right on time! How’d it go?” Bob, who was working the counter for the evening shift, went way back with Laura. Once upon a time he’d been the one to sign out the first gun she’d ever held. Bob had been at SHIELD longer then anyone else Laura had ever heard of, apart from Sheila, who ruled HR with an iron thumb and a heart of pure gold. If Bob and Sheila didn’t like you, word was you wouldn’t last one day in training. Laura was glad to say she had no idea if that was true or not.

“Hi Bob, It went as well as could be expected. How’s every here? Still holding down the fort?”

Bob grinned, easy going and open in the presence of people he genuinely liked. “It’s just work, work, work, as always. Got that shipment of new 422 climbing gloves in though, so if you’re still looking for a pair I can sign out out a pair in the morning before they’re all gone. I know you’ve been making do with those class 3-A pieces of crap they gave you, but they really don’t cut it with tactility verses flexibility.” 

Bob was a saint. “Oh that’s awesome, I’ll come take you up on that offer then. Thanks, Bob, I’ll be seeing you.” He nodded congenially. 

“I’ll be here. Have a good one Maro. Nice seeing you and your friends.”

With the equipment taken care of and her preliminary Op Report submitted just as they’d pulled in to the garage earlier, all that was left was Medical and then a quick side trip to HR for Marisa before bedtime. Laura released Carter to go hit up one of her residency friends in Medical to sign off on her checkup, before she collected Marisa from the Armory’s couch and set off to go there herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Sorry for the long delay in updates, but real life intervened for a bit. I just saw CATWS, and it's giving me all kinds of awesome ideas for this FicVerse in the future. I can't wait :) (Don't worry though! This fic is set in 2006, so the events in MAOS and CATWS and the vast majority of the MovieVerse won't effect it yet, so no spoilers, I promise :)
> 
> as always, chapter title from Gold by Victoria Justice.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was initially supposed to be just a drabble of what Laura is up to during Don't Let Me Go, but it's turned into it's own little fic that I'm really enjoying working on. This is my first time posting a WIP that isn't self contained in each chapter, so please bear with me as I work on it. Updates will be intermitent as real life interfers.
> 
> Follow me on my writery things and poetry tumblr, www.myownknight.tumblr.com
> 
> Titles from Victoria Justice's Gold.


End file.
